August 3, 2007 (LPAC)--Today, the Eurasian Economic Cooperation Community (EurAsEC) Council on cooperation in the nuclear energy sector completed its first-ever meeting in Angarsk, where Russia, Kazakhstan, and other Eurasian nations are in the process of turning the Angarsk chemical electrolysis plant into a joint international center for uranium enrichment, intended to eventually process uranium for any nation which joins the project. Members from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan were there, attending the meeting, Itar-Tass reported. Nikolia Spassky, who is deputy director of the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy, was elected chairman, and Tomur Zhantikln, who is head of the nuclear division of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, deputy chairman.

The meeting set up a work plan for 2007-08 and discussed critical issues, including training personnel to work in the nuclear energy sector, and visited the Angarsk plant. The work of the council, Spassky announced after the meeting, is "in the final analysis, all about the integration of nuclear sectors of Russia and our nearest partners, including the EurAsEC states, for peaceful purposes. This task is dictated by the life, and similar tendencies of amalgamation and globalization of the nuclear sector are occurring in the whole world. Therefore, there is the hope that the council's work will help development of the processes that are already occurring in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States, the successor organization to the Soviet republics] space."